Day of Remembrance as Spacewalk Preps and Cygnus Work Move On

Astronauts Tim Kopra (left) and Scott Kelly talk to the Military Times this morning from the International Space Station. Credit: NASA TV

Today, NASA remembers the sacrifice of the crews of Apollo 1 and space shuttles Columbia and Challenger. Mission Control Center in Houston and the crew aboard the International Space Station observed a moment of silence and Commander Scott Kelly sent down a few words memorializing the lost astronauts.

The six residents aboard the space station kept up their pace with spacewalk preparations, Cygnus cargo transfers and advanced space science. The orbital laboratory also completed two of a series of reboosts on Wednesday ahead of a crew swap and a cargo delivery planned for March.

Cosmonauts Yuri Malenchenko and Sergey Volkov checked out their Russian Orlan spacesuits and tools before next week’s spacewalk. The duo will install hardware and science experiments on the station’s Russian segment. NASA TV will broadcast the spacewalk live beginning Wednesday at 7:30 a.m. EST.

Astronauts Tim Kopra and Tim Peake worked throughout the day transferring cargo from the Orbital ATK Cygnus space freighter. The Cygnus is due to leave the station’s Unity module Feb. 19 and burn up over the Pacific Ocean the next day.

We are so excited to imagine the Mars we are looking up and that many people live as almost the same as we live on the Earth. In the future, such stories will be no wonder,though.
I feel nostalgy at these.